Four federal NFA lawsuits are now moving through district courts in Texas, Missouri, and Kentucky, all arguing that the National Firearms Act’s registration requirements for suppressors and short-barreled rifles became unconstitutional on January 1, 2026, when a new federal law dropped the $200 making and transfer tax to zero. The cases were filed between July 2025 and February 2026 by a coalition of gun-rights organizations, firearms businesses, individual owners, and fifteen Republican-led state attorneys general. The first oral arguments on summary judgment are scheduled for June 18, 2026, in Missouri, followed by a consolidated hearing on July 7, 2026, in Texas.
Why the Tax Change Set Off the Litigation
The NFA has been on the books since 1934. It requires anyone making or transferring a covered item — short-barreled rifles and shotguns, machine guns, suppressors, and a residual “any other weapons” category — to register with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, submit fingerprints and photographs, and pay a $200 tax. The Supreme Court upheld the statute in United States v. Miller (1939) largely as an exercise of Congress’s taxing power, and reaffirmed the revised framework in United States v. Freed (1971) after Congress amended the law in 1968.
On July 4, 2025, President Trump signed the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act.” Effective January 1, 2026, the law set the making and transfer tax for suppressors, short-barreled rifles, short-barreled shotguns, and “any other weapons” to zero dollars. Machine guns and destructive devices were excluded. The registration and approval requirements were left in place, so applicants still must submit ATF Form 4 paperwork and clear a background check for each item, even with no tax owed.
That gap between a zero tax and a still-active registration regime is the opening the plaintiffs are using. Their theory is straightforward: if the taxing power was what held the NFA up, and there is no longer a tax on most covered items, the registration scheme has lost its constitutional footing.
The Four Cases
Silencer Shop Foundation v. ATF (Northern District of Texas)
Filed July 4, 2025 — the same day the tax-zeroing law was signed — this is the lead case. Original plaintiffs included Gun Owners of America, Gun Owners Foundation, the Firearms Regulatory Accountability Coalition, Silencer Shop Foundation, Palmetto State Armory, SilencerCo, B&T USA, and an individual owner. On August 8, 2025, an amended complaint added fifteen state attorneys general as plaintiffs: Alaska, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Montana, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, West Virginia, and Wyoming.
Judge James Wesley Hendrix is presiding. Both sides filed cross-motions for summary judgment in the fall of 2025, with supplemental briefing continuing after that. In June 2026, Judge Hendrix consolidated Jensen v. ATF into this case. The summary judgment hearing is set for July 7, 2026, in San Angelo, Texas.
Brown v. ATF (Eastern District of Missouri)
Filed August 1, 2025, Brown was brought by the Second Amendment Foundation, the American Suppressor Association, the National Rifle Association, and the Firearms Policy Coalition, joined by Prime Protection STL Tactical Boutique and two individual plaintiffs. It challenges NFA registration for suppressors, short-barreled rifles, short-barreled shotguns, and “any other weapons.”
Cross-motions for summary judgment were filed between November 2025 and April 2026, with amicus briefing following. Oral arguments are scheduled for June 18, 2026, making this the first of the four cases to reach a hearing.
Jensen v. ATF (Northern District of Texas)
Filed October 9, 2025, in the Amarillo Division, Jensen was brought by three individuals, Hot Shots Custom LLC, the Texas State Rifle Association, FPC Action Foundation, and the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms. Plaintiffs moved for summary judgment on November 12, 2025. In late May 2026 the case was transferred and consolidated into Silencer Shop Foundation before Judge Hendrix, so it will be argued at the July 7 hearing.
Roberts v. ATF (Eastern District of Kentucky)
The newest of the four, filed February 26, 2026, in Covington. Plaintiffs include the Buckeye Firearms Association, the American Suppressor Association Foundation, the Center for Human Liberty, Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership, Meridian Ordnance, and two individuals, with backing from the Firearms Policy Coalition. Plaintiffs filed an amended complaint and summary judgment motion on April 24, 2026; the government filed its opposition and cross-motion on May 27, 2026. No hearing date has been publicly set.
The Constitutional Arguments
Every one of the four lawsuits runs on the same two arguments.
The first is about federal power. The plaintiffs argue that with the tax at zero, the registration scheme can no longer be justified as a tool to collect tax, and that the NFA cannot be salvaged by the Commerce Clause because it was never enacted as commercial regulation. Fingerprints, photographs, background checks, and wait times, they say, cannot be imposed to enforce a tax that does not exist. Adam Kraut, executive director of the Second Amendment Foundation, said the NFA’s “constitutional hook has evaporated” when the group filed its summary judgment motion.
The second argument comes from the Second Amendment. Under New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen (2022), a modern firearms regulation must fit within the historical tradition of firearms regulation in the United States. The plaintiffs contend suppressors and short-barreled rifles are “arms” in common use for lawful purposes, are not “dangerous and unusual,” and have no historical registration analogue.
The state plaintiffs in the Texas case added a fiscal wrinkle: state agencies that own regulated firearms still have to comply with the registration paperwork despite owing no federal tax, imposing administrative costs on the states.
The Justice Department is defending the statute on three fronts. First, the DOJ argues the taxing power still applies because the NFA continues to impose a “special occupational tax” on businesses that import, manufacture, or sell NFA items, and registration supports enforcement of that business-level tax. Second, the government invokes the Commerce Clause and Gonzales v. Raich (2005) to argue that even intrastate possession can be reached as part of a broader economic scheme. Third, it cites the Necessary and Proper Clause.
On the Second Amendment, the DOJ relies on Miller and characterizes suppressors and short-barreled rifles as “particularly dangerous weapons” that are “uniquely susceptible to criminal misuse.” In its Roberts briefing, the government pointed to the Fifth Circuit’s ruling in United States v. Peterson and the Fourth Circuit’s ruling in United States v. Speed as authority that NFA registration is “presumptively constitutional.”
Gun Owners of America has called the DOJ’s brief an “open attack on the Second Amendment” and an “alarmingly expansive theory of federal authority,” arguing the government is treating Congress’s decision to remove the tax as a “pretext to rewrite the limits of congressional power.”
What Appellate Courts Have Already Said
The Supreme Court has so far declined to weigh in. Three NFA-related cert petitions have been denied since late 2025.
In United States v. Peterson, the Fifth Circuit affirmed a conviction for possession of an unregistered suppressor, holding in August 2025 that the NFA’s registration scheme is “presumptively constitutional” because it operates as a “shall-issue” regime with “narrow, objective, and definite standards” consistent with Bruen. The panel assumed without deciding that suppressors are “arms,” but found Peterson had not shown the registration requirements actually burdened him, in part because he admitted he simply forgot to register. The panel added that its ruling “does not foreclose the possibility that another litigant may successfully challenge the NFA’s requirements” on a stronger factual record. The Supreme Court denied certiorari on April 20, 2026.
In Rush v. United States, the Seventh Circuit affirmed a conviction for possessing an unregistered AR-15 with a 7.5-inch barrel in March 2025, holding that Miller “survives Bruen” and that short-barreled rifles are not “in common use” for lawful purposes. The NRA-ILA backed Rush’s cert petition, telling the Court there was “widespread confusion among lower courts.” The government conceded that “some of the questions that petitioner raises may well warrant review” but defended the restrictions. The Court denied certiorari on December 15, 2025.
In Adamiak v. United States, the Fourth Circuit affirmed an NFA-related conviction in October 2025. The NRA and Second Amendment Foundation filed amicus briefs supporting review. The Supreme Court denied certiorari on May 18, 2026.
The pattern in those denials matters for what happens next. All three were criminal appeals with limited factual records. The four civil cases now pending were built specifically around the tax elimination, brought by organizational coalitions and states with resources to develop the record, and framed to give the courts a cleaner vehicle for deciding the constitutional questions.
What to Watch Next
The near-term calendar is compressed. Oral arguments in Brown v. ATF are set for June 18, 2026, in Missouri. The consolidated hearing in Silencer Shop Foundation v. ATF, now including Jensen, is set for July 7, 2026, in San Angelo. Roberts v. ATF in Kentucky is fully briefed and awaiting a hearing date.
Whichever side loses at the district level is expected to appeal, which would send the cases to the Fifth, Eighth, and Sixth Circuits. Because the Fifth Circuit has already spoken in Peterson, appellate rulings out of the Missouri and Kentucky cases could produce a circuit split on the same core question, and a split is the kind of development that has forced the Supreme Court’s hand on other Second Amendment issues.
One boundary worth flagging: none of these lawsuits touch the NFA’s treatment of machine guns or destructive devices, which were left out of the 2025 tax change and remain subject to both the tax and the registration regime.